RECAP OF FIRST FOUR, THE GREATEST UPSET, AND SISTER JEANAt least $56 will be donated to World Vision; over $705 donated in 8 years

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- Apparently the Selection Committee did watch Pac 12 basketball because they shafted one of the big 5 conferences for a good reason — they suck. With any respect, USC would be easily in, UCLA and Arizona St would be 8/9 seeds, and Arizona, as the conference and tournament champ, would be at least a 3 seed. Nope. No USC, UCLA and Arizona St relegated to the First Four games, and champ Arizona dropped to a 4 seed and not in the West. Well, the committee knew what it was doing as #11bE-UCLA choked down the stretch against #11aE-St. Bonaventure, 65-58, and #11aMW-Arizona St lost a close one to #11bMW-Syracuse, 60-56. This was the first time a conference had two teams in the First Four and now have the distinction as the only conference to have two losers in the First Four in the same year. UCLA’s Aaron Holiday was a turnover machine (10 of UCLA’s 20 total) including three in the last 30 seconds after the Bruins had rallied to tie the game at 58. Arizona St had a 7 point lead with 7 minutes left before Syracuse, the last team in, went on an 8-0 run. Certainly, the Pac 12 basketball teams matched the horrible post-season Pac 12 football had.

#16bE-Radford slowly outscored #16aE-LIU Brooklyn 12-3 in the final five minutes to get their first tournament win, 71-61. There were 42 fouls and 30 turnovers in this grudge fest. #16bW-Texas Southern broke open a 10-10 game and never looked back in routing #16aW-NC Central, 64-46. Like a few of the Southwestern Athletic (SWA) Conference teams, Texas Southern played their first 13 games on the road against top teams and went 0-13 to start but won when it mattered, in the SWAC championship game and in the First Four game, their first ever tournament win. Texas Southern’s 0-13 start was the worst ever for a tournament team and they became the first sub .500 team (15-19) to win a tournament game. NC Central lost their second straight First Four game (last year).

The greatest upset is one of those “where were you when it happened” and I’ll always remember being at the Black Angus in Buena Park with my family and watching the game on the NCAA March Madness app on my iPad Air 2. Stunned. I even tweeted a cryptic message: Watch TV now. History in making? for anyone who didn’t bother to watch another #1 seed trash a #16 seed. The way #16S-UMBC played was fun to watch, they never took the gas off the accelerator that most big programs do when they have a double-digit lead with 10 minutes left. Kept the pressure and #1S-Virigina never responded. Virginia wasn’t a #1 seed, they were the #1 overall seed, and despite losing a bench player who was just 4th on the team in scoring, were still heavily favored to make the Sweet 16 before they had to worry about not having De’Andre Hunter on the bench. In fact, I compiled a few of the predictions below from all over the spectrum, post-Hunter injury. The most interesting was the swarm concept as a bunch of people individually moved a token toward the most likely scenario, in this case Virginia – High Confidence. The concept here as that as everyone is moving their token to that spot, some will Read the rest of this entry »

While you decide who will win the tourney, for the 8th year I’m doing the HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity, where I will donate $2 per entry to a charity, this year to World Vision, which is a non-government organisation (NGO) that works with people around the world to help eliminate poverty and its causes. It is working with the United Nations and other NGOs to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. World Vision was founded in the USA during the Korean War in the 1950s. This was a recommendation from one of our players and if you have an idea, please let me know for next year. This First Four for Charity is free and you just have to submit (you can comment on this post to enter, email, post to Facebook, tweet @HWCI_Pools) who the four First Four winners will be and by what point margin. For example: LIU by 3, UCLA by 25, Tx-Southern by 1, Syracuse by 8. The four games are LIU-Brooklyn vs Radford, St. Bonaventure vs UCLA, NC Central vs Texas Southern, and Arizona St vs Syracuse. Get your entry by 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday. As a bonus, in the end, if we top our record of 178 entries this year, I’ll donate an additional $25. Also, invite your friends and people can enter (since it’s free) this charity contest but not our main pool.